He faced a revolt by several senior figures in the party in protest at his relationship with model Jo Marney, a 25-year-old model embroiled in a racism scandal over text messages she had written about Grenfell Tower victims and Meghan Markle.

Ms Smurova said: “I trusted him 100 per cent. I supported him throughout the years.

“I could never have imagined my husband doing something like that to our family…What happened at Christmas was just so shocking [and] so deeply hurtful.”

Ms Smurova went on to rubbish Mr Bolton’s claims that their marriage had ended the previous summer, months before his relationship with Ms Marney began.

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“No, this is not true,” she said, “because as far as I understand, he met with this woman on December 16th, he came to see us in Vienna on December 18th, [and then] on the 19th had a wonderful time at his youngest daughter’s party.

“Only after did things get worse…I could see that my husband was not the way he would normally be.

“The reality, as I understand now, is he was probably in touch with this woman.”

“When he gave one of the interviews in which he was asked about his leadership, he said proudly that he had sacrificed his family for politics.

UKIP leader Henry Bolton on his relationship with Jo Marney

“Then a couple of days later he said he’s happy to have lost politics for this woman…it’s shocking.”

Mr Bolton claimed he had broken up with Ms Marney in the run-up to the vote on his leadership but when quizzed by LBC presenter Nick Ferrari if they were “ever not together”, Mr Bolton responded with “no”.

He admitted he had “told fibs” saying: “I think, Nick, I was playing words a little bit.”